


stripped down to our skeletons (again)

by defcontwo



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-18 01:14:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3550604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/defcontwo/pseuds/defcontwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve takes a step forward, lets his shield fall to his side and thinks: <i>I was right.</i> </p><p>Or: what if Steve Rogers met the Winter Soldier under different circumstances?</p>
            </blockquote>





	stripped down to our skeletons (again)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WishingStar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WishingStar/gifts).



The Winter Soldier is all bulk and finely honed aggression; there’s a whole history of violence in the slope of his shoulders, in the gun strapped to his back like Steve would his shield. Natasha’s voice rings sharp in his ears, _watch your back, he’s dangerous,_ but then there it is, the faintest hint of a shift, a loosening of the shoulders and a brow furrowed in confusion and against all better instincts, Steve takes a step forward, lets his shield fall to his side and thinks: _I was right._

 

 

 

\\_ \\_ \\_ \\_ \\_ \\_ \\_

 

He’s in DC for all of two days when his neighbor, the pretty blonde nurse in the pastel scrubs, crowds him into the pocket of space underneath the stairwell. She claps one hand over his mouth and says, in a low, urgent whisper that her real name is Sharon Carter, that she’s a SHIELD agent but not for much longer, not if she or her Aunt Peggy has anything to say about it because the thing is, it turns out that SHIELD was HYDRA all along.

Same evil, different century. Steve can’t even pretend to be surprised.

Forty-eight hours later, he’s standing with Sharon and Natasha and Maria Hill amidst the rubble of the Triskelion, Nick Fury long gone and Alexander Pierce’s cooling body abandoned to the flames.

Laughter bubbles up, unbidden and wildly inappropriate, and Steve claps a gloved hand over his mouth. “You know,” he says, “it figures that I couldn’t even make it in DC for a full week.”

The corner of Sharon’s lips twitch. “You been to Air and Space yet?”

“Nah. Should I put it on the list?”

She shrugs. “It’s worth the trip. You might as well stick around a little longer.”

So he does.

 

 

 

\\_ \\_ \\_ \\_ \\_ \\_ \\_

 

It’s about half an hour until closing which is the only reason that Steve can stand in the middle of Air and Space, stock still and looking right up at the _Spirit of St. Louis_ , hands in his pockets and baseball cap left behind at home.

Bucky would love it here. He was always going on and on about planes with Howard; he’d be eating all this up with a spoon and then some, if given the chance, and it’s not a surprise, how that thought comes with its own particular brand of hurt.

“No offense, man, but there are hotter planes in this museum to stand around and gawk at,” a voice says, interrupting Steve’s thoughts.

A handsome man stands just a couple feet to the left, casual and unassuming as anything, with a small, welcoming smile and a sweatshirt with a tell-tale military insignia. “Now, the Phantom II -- there’s a classic beauty if there ever was one,” the man says.

Steve huffs a laugh, rolling his shoulders back in relief because this, this he can do. Two military guys shooting the shit, easy as one-two-three. “Let me guess -- Air Force?”

“What gave me away?” The man asks, grinning as he holds out a hand. “Sam Wilson.”

Steve reaches out and takes his hand. “Steve Rogers.”

“Yeah, you know, I kind of put that together.”

 

 

 

\\_ \\_ \\_ \\_ \\_ \\_ \\_

 

There was a moment, right before Nick Fury put a bullet between Alexander Pierce’s eyes, when Pierce turned to Steve and said, “you’re never going to know the truth. That’s the best part in all of this. That’s the joke I’ll take to my grave. You can kill me but you’ll never be able to undo what we’ve done.”

A second later, Pierce was dead, his blood splattered across the cold, marble floors of his office.

It’s been months and months, and still, Steve wakes in the middle of the night, wondering what the hell Pierce meant by that.

 

 

 

\\_ \\_ \\_ \\_ \\_ \\_ \\_

 

“Do you think it’s possible….” Steve starts, running a finger along the lip of his beer glass. “Do you think it’s possible that sometimes, in war, you wind up running into someone who was just --- who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time? That sometimes the person you’re taking out is just a victim?”

Sam makes a face, wincing visibly even in the dim lighting. The bar that they’re in is mostly a shithole, when all is said and done, but there’s something to said for a dark space, four dollar Yuengling, and a place where no one starts coming up to you, asking too many questions.

“You don’t like to start with the easy stuff, do you, Rogers?”

Steve shrugs. “Never really been my style, I guess.”

“Well,” Sam says, grabbing hold of his beer and leaning back in his bar stool just enough so that he can meet Steve’s gaze. “I’d say that there’s a reason I became a pararescue. When we live in a world like ours -- when we know that, in the end, there’s just too much that we can’t account for, that there’s no hard and fast line that says here’s the bad guys and here’s the good guys, well -- I’d rather save a life then take one, you know?”

“Huh,” Steve says, hunching into himself. A mile away, in his apartment, there’s a tattered, half-complete case file burning a hole in his desk and in his mind.

Life isn’t that uncomplicated, not for him, not anymore. Or maybe he’s just kidding himself when he tries to say that it ever was.

Still. It’s been a long time since he’s felt like he’s just saved a life, easy as that, and Steve yearns for the simplicity of it, for the moral certainty that he used to wear as well as the chip on his shoulder, that he used to know as intimately as the taste of blood in the back of his mouth.

He was going to work for SHIELD, is the thing.

(He was going to work for HYDRA, is the thing, and there’s a sour taste in the back of his mouth where there once was blood, and it’s the furthest thing from an improvement).

Steve picks up his beer and drains it in one swift motion.

“Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.”

 

 

 

\\_ \\_ \\_ \\_ \\_ \\_ \\_

 

It starts like this:

“We’ve got a loose end,” Natasha says, tossing a charred, half-complete folder onto his kitchen table. “An assassin. He’s been active on and off for the past fifty years. I’ve always known him as the Winter Soldier but all of the old files that I’ve come across referred to him only as the Asset. I assumed he was a mercenary, a ghost story sold to the highest bidder -- turns out he was HYDRA all along.”

“And he’s in the wind?”

“Looks like it,” she says.

“Do you think he’s a HYDRA loyalist? He’d have to be, right?”

Here, Natasha purses her lips and she goes a little quiet, a little blank in a way that Steve’s come to recognize -- whoever this loose end really is, he hits just a little bit too close to home for her.

“There’s a lot of data on the Asset that’s locked down still and what’s left of the older physical documents are mostly destroyed, so the intel isn’t complete but….” Natasha says, pausing. The tip of her index finger reaches out, tracing the bolded letters stamped on the front of the folder. The motion is so small, so automatic, that Steve wonders if she even realizes she’s doing it.

“There’s references to….hypnotism. Torture documented over the course of several decades. They kept him in cryo freeze on and off, which would explain the time lapse between assassinations credited to the Winter Soldier. And there’s…there’s a file that we haven’t decrypted all the way through just yet, Sharon’s working on it, but there’s mentions of….brainwashing procedures.”

Steve lets out a breath, and he’s surprised to look down and find that both of his fists have clenched real tight; he’s even more surprised when he opens his palms, only to find that he’s cut angry, red crescent moons into skin. Funny, how he didn’t even feel it.

“Jesus.”

“He’s dangerous,” Natasha says abruptly, snatching her hand away from the folder.

“So are you,” Steve points out. “Hell, so am I.”

“Yeah, you’re a real monster, Rogers,” Natasha mocks, but there’s a knowing tone to it -- she has seen him in action, she understands too well that at the end of the day, a soldier is a soldier, no matter how many shining, bright costumes you try to shove him into.

“The Winter Soldier, huh?” Steve says. “Do you think...do you think if we find him, we could help him?”

At this, Natasha can only shrug. “Only if he wants to be helped.”

 

 

 

\\_ \\_ \\_ \\_ \\_ \\_ \\_

 

A punch to the gut turns into a kick to the back of the knee turns into Steve’s arm twisted around his back, turns into his elbow jammed backwards into the Winter Soldier’s stomach.

One step forward, two steps backward. It’s about as even a fight as Steve’s ever had and there’s a rhythm to it, almost like a dance, almost like the best sex he’s ever had, and that’s a hell of a thought to have in the middle of a fight, with a knife three inches from your face. He hates himself a little for having it -- it feels like a sacrilege, almost, something dishonorable to Bucky’s memory to be thinking of him here and now while Steve’s getting the shit kicked out of him by a masked, unnamed assassin.

He and Bucky, they never fought like this. When they fought, it was more of a joke than anything else, a bit of fun to pass the time, or an excuse, maybe, that allowed the fighting to lead into something else entirely. They tussled, barely, grappling at loose clothes until it became less about winning and more about tugging clothing aside, more about pressing each other into the hard wooden floor and holding on real tight.

Steve knocks the knife away, sends it clattering to concrete, and takes a careful step backwards, relishing in the sound of blood pumping in his ears, the hot rush of air and the thrill of adrenaline.

This is the third time that he’s faced the Winter Soldier.

It always goes the same. It always goes exactly like this: They fight. They break even. The Soldier flees. Rinse, repeat.

It’s nothing like fighting with Bucky except for all the ways that it is.

 

 

 

\\_ \\_ \\_ \\_ \\_ \\_ \\_

 

There’s a rumble beneath their feet; the Verizon Center is at full capacity, chock full of eighteen thousand fans screaming and chanting in unison, and in less than ten minutes, there’ll be Capitals fans streaming through every exit.

The Winter Soldier couldn’t have picked a worse time or a worse place. Steve has to keep him on the roof; he has to keep whatever happens next to the roof, because if he loses the Winter Soldier on a Saturday night in Chinatown, he’s never gonna catch him again, not any time soon.

“Do you have visual on the target?” Sharon says.

Steve reaches up and taps the comm-link. “Affirmative. Approaching target with caution.”

“Trip’s got eyes and ears on you, Rogers, so don’t do anything stupid again.”

Steve huffs a laugh. “Who, me?” He says, before tapping the comm-link off and walking closer.

The Winter Soldier stands barely ten feet away from him, perched precariously on the ledge, while the bustle of cars and people rises up from below.

“How about we skip the fighting this time?” Steve calls out.

The Winter Soldier has his hair tied back away from his face but still, there’s that ever-present mask that gives nothing away, expression as blank as anything.

“I know what they did to you,” Steve says, and it’s a last ditch effort, like throwing out a proverbial life-line because there’s this unexplained something driving him forward, scratching around the edges of his mind that keeps telling him that he cannot keep chasing this man in vain. “We just want to help. _I_ just want to help.”

There’s a beat and then another, and if he were anyone else, Steve would miss the way the Winter Soldier’s shoulders loosen, the way his expression goes from carefully blank to tense and confused, so Steve throws caution to the wind and takes another step forward, letting his shield fall to his side.

“It doesn’t have to be right now -- tomorrow morning. The Korean War Memorial. Meet me there at 7 AM,” Steve tosses out.

The Winter Soldier locks eyes with Steve, staring for a full minute that feels like it stretches on and on, until he gives a quick, terse nod.

In another second, he’s gone.

 

 

 

\\_ \\_ \\_ \\_ \\_ \\_ \\_

 

Steve heaves his gear onto the kitchen table, tugging idly at the shoulder straps of his combat suit. He’s breathing hard, still, like he’s been running a race but it’s adrenaline that carried him all the way here and it’s adrenaline that’s gonna carry him all the way to the Korean War Memorial in seven hours.

There’s a folder sitting on the kitchen counter, with a post-it note on the top, Natasha’s neat, familiar scrawl printed across it.

_Called in a few favors from Kiev. This is the oldest file on the Winter Soldier I could find. You might want to sit down for this one._

Steve doesn’t sit down. He flips open the folder with trembling fingers, and barely registers the sound of his shield falling to the floor with a loud, resounding thump.

There, pinned to the inside corner of the crumbling folder is a picture of the Winter Soldier, and Steve thought it was a funny sort of a coincidence, or maybe a fucked up self-indulgence, how he always thought their eyes were so similar.

Smiling up at him, young and bright and full of hope in his brand-new uniform, is Bucky.

 

\\_ \\_ \\_ \\_ \\_ \\_ \\_

 

 

The early morning light is dim, casting a burnt orange and purple glow over the Korean War Veterans Memorial; the still-life statues and a couple of lone joggers making a loop around the perimeter of the National Mall are Steve's only company as he waits, hands tucked firmly into the pockets of his wind-breaker to stem the shaking.

He didn't sleep a wink the whole night. He doesn't think he could've even if he'd tried.  

"I'm here," a voice says, and it's Bucky's voice, it's _Bucky_ , for all that its hoarse and thin, cracking from disuse. Steve doesn't look over at the figure next to him, is too afraid that if he does, he'll lose it, he'll sweep Bucky up into a hug and never, ever let go but that'd be the easiest way to scare him off. They're standing shoulder-to-shoulder, almost, and Steve imagines that he can feel the warmth of skin against skin through the many layers of clothing. For now, that'll have to be enough. 

"I trust you," Bucky says, and there's something young and lost in his voice that tugs at Steve's barely held together resolve. "But I don't know why. Do you?"

"I have a good idea," Steve says, rolling his shoulders back, his whole body tense from the effort it takes _not_ to reach out.  

Seventy years ago, Bucky would've rolled his eyes and knocked his shoulder into Steve's; he'd never let Steve get away with leaving it at that. But this man standing next to him, he's not that Bucky, he's something new altogether.

Now, he just nods, carefully, like he's turning Steve's words over in his mind and weighing the consequences. 

"Do you trust me?" 

"Of course," Steve says, all at once, in a rush. "With my life." 

Bucky turns and quirks an eyebrow, like maybe he thinks that Steve's just a little bit crazy for saying so, and it's such a painfully familiar face that Steve can't help the burst of hope that rushes clear through him. 

"Well, alright," Bucky says, and Steve knows that he's not imagining the way Bucky's voice dips, all casual and easy, the ghost of Brooklyn in the flesh. "Let's start with that." 

So they do. 


End file.
